Speaker 1: All media. It's me James, and before we listen to
Speaker 1: this episode today, I just did want to make you
Speaker 1: a way that I conducted these interviews in French and Spanish,
Speaker 1: mostly Spanish, and then transcribed and translated them. So what
Speaker 1: you're hearing is a translated interview that's being edited for
Speaker 1: brevity and content. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker 2: LVY awesome. Yeah, the journey is dangerous, but what can
Speaker 2: we do. We can't stay in a country where the
Speaker 2: economy is getting worse and worse. With a salary of
Speaker 2: three dollars a month, you can't survive. Like my friend said,
Speaker 2: if you have a job in other countries, maybe you
Speaker 2: can invest some money. But where are you going to
Speaker 2: get the money to invest If before you had a
Speaker 2: salary that fed you paid for your car, your house
Speaker 2: and your children to enjoy it all with, and now
Speaker 2: you can't even afford to put gas in the car.
Speaker 2: So it's true. Yeah, the darien is dangerous, but nothing
Speaker 2: is impossible. We walk hand in hand with God and
Speaker 2: with the faith that we will get there. But that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it isn't difficult. But I'll say it again,
Speaker 2: it's not impossible. You suffer, you cry, you go hungry cold,
Speaker 2: but thank God we made it through.
Speaker 1: Bored around the Tuquesa River, the jungle rumbles quiet as
Speaker 1: you pass by on your boat. Insects, frogs, and birds
Speaker 1: all combined to make a sort of deep throbbing that
Speaker 1: emanates from the darkness between the trees. It seems it
Speaker 1: wants to be calling you in and warning you to
Speaker 1: stay away. I've been in the jungle before, in the
Speaker 1: Rwanda Congo borderlands and in Venezuela, but I've never really
Speaker 1: felt the sense of foreboding I did as we rode
Speaker 1: down the river, protected only by our hollow log, looking
Speaker 1: into the triple canopy forest, and knowing that if I
Speaker 1: walk long enough in the shadows, I'd be confronted with
Speaker 1: the remains of people I might have interviewed if it
Speaker 1: hadn't been for a rolled ankle, a slippery rock, or
Speaker 1: a desperate sip of water. To understand what drives people
Speaker 1: to enter the jungle with their children and their dreams,
Speaker 1: I think we also have to understand what drives them
Speaker 1: to leave wherever they're living. And that's what I want
Speaker 1: to talk about today, the story of migrants crossing the
Speaker 1: Daddy and gap is an American one. It's impossible to
Speaker 1: disentangle the people making this dangerous journey from the history
Speaker 1: of support for dictatorship sanctions, an imperial plunder that ties
Speaker 1: the United States to its American brothers and sisters in
Speaker 1: the South. Sometimes I play a game with myself at
Speaker 1: the border where I try and meet people from all
Speaker 1: the countries named in Washington bullets in a single day.
Speaker 1: Since Biden bungled the Afghanistan withdraw, it's become a lot easier,
Speaker 1: but Tibet can be hard. For two hundred years, since
Speaker 1: President Monroe gave the State of the Union address in
Speaker 1: December eighteen twenty three, the US has seen the Western
Speaker 1: hemisphere is its sphere of influence. What is opposed old
Speaker 1: fashioned colonialism. It has used less avert methods of control,
Speaker 1: as well as overt military across the hemisphere. For much
Speaker 1: of the last century, it supported and installed dictators who
Speaker 1: would prevent what it saw as a threat of state
Speaker 1: socialism in its sphere of influence, and allowed them to
Speaker 1: create economic and political climates that were unsurvivable for the
Speaker 1: majority and extremely profitable for US based corporations. The direct
Speaker 1: result of this policy has been economic insecurity, political instability,
Speaker 1: and state violence across South and Central America, resulting in
Speaker 1: people making the very natural humor decision to flee to
Speaker 1: somewhere safer. As in so many other empires, they've made
Speaker 1: the choice to lead a destabilized colonial periphery and seek
Speaker 1: safety instability in the metropol For more than a century,
Speaker 1: money and good to be able to travel seamlessly up
Speaker 1: and down the continent, but people have not. The bananaread
Speaker 1: for breakfast this morning made the journey in a few days,
Speaker 1: but people take months, if not years, pay thousands of dollars,
Speaker 1: climb mountains ford rivers, and risk their lives on trains
Speaker 1: and buses that cost a lot more than the flights
Speaker 1: I took to Panama, but offered considerably less comfort and safety.
Speaker 1: As climate change has have a greater impacts, more and
Speaker 1: more people are forced to leave their homes so their
Speaker 1: livelihoods become less sustainable. The Guna, the indigenous people at
Speaker 1: the Panamanian coast, in an area called Guna Yala, are
Speaker 1: having to withdraw from some of their islands because of
Speaker 1: sea level rise. Right now, agriculture across the world is
Speaker 1: increasingly threatened by extreme weather and rising temperatures, and our
Speaker 1: oceans are less they're able to sustain life than they
Speaker 1: once were due to pollution and overfishing. Forced to leave
Speaker 1: their homes as people have been for millennia by weather
Speaker 1: patterns changing, people head to places that have want to
Speaker 1: caused much of the issue and tried to insulate themselves
Speaker 1: from its consequences. Their American dreams are modest to overcome
Speaker 1: the crippling low paid. They received a home to bring
Speaker 1: their children up in a place where they have a
Speaker 1: good chance of surviving their twenties, to work and get
Speaker 1: paid enough to get by. They want to be able
Speaker 1: to protest and not get shot, and to look forward
Speaker 1: to the future not feared. These aren't guaranteed in the USA,
Speaker 1: and as many of you listening will know, it can
Speaker 1: be high for us to make ends meet here as well.
Speaker 1: But despite what you see on social and legacy media,
Speaker 1: things are unlikely to become as bad here as they
Speaker 1: are in Venezuela, Cameroon or Iran anytime soon. I've lived
Speaker 1: in Venezuela, specifically in the formerly jab eastern neighborhood of
Speaker 1: La Pastora in Caracas, and I've seen how hard it
Speaker 1: is for my friends who still live there. Even for
Speaker 1: people with no other disadvantages, making rent and feeding your
Speaker 1: family can be a challenge. That's part of why Venezuelan
Speaker 1: people make up the majority of the folks I met
Speaker 1: men daddian so much so that I'd slipped back into
Speaker 1: using Venezuelan slang in Spanish, and after a few days
Speaker 1: of seeing the same people engaging in the kind of
Speaker 1: friendly mockery and banter that I remember well from Caracas,
Speaker 1: mostly the super form of asking them why they crossed
Speaker 1: a Daddian gap in Man United shirts or worse yet,
Speaker 1: in a Chelsea shit. It's important to steal moments of
Speaker 1: humor in these difficult times, to laugh a little among
Speaker 1: all the suffering, and that's something people in Venezuela have
Speaker 1: done very well for a very long time. But despite
Speaker 1: their humor, I could tell the journey had a serious
Speaker 1: impact on the people I spoke to.
Speaker 3: You have to go through a lot, a lot of jungle,
Speaker 3: a lot of hills. There are people, there are dead
Speaker 3: people on the road, so it's something you cannot really explain.
Speaker 3: It's complicated because everything can be explained in a fashion,
Speaker 3: but it's not the same as living it. It's insanity.
Speaker 3: Three four days with that food and nothing. One thing
Speaker 3: is to live it. Explaining it, talking about it, that's different.
Speaker 3: It's hard to put into words.
Speaker 1: This interview is when I conducted with one group of
Speaker 1: Venezuelan migrants with my voice recorder in the chest pocket
Speaker 1: of my shirt and whatever bags it let me carry
Speaker 1: in my hands. We walked along the last part of
Speaker 1: the trail, discussing what they'd seen. For a while, we
Speaker 1: joked a little. One guy had crossed it a man
Speaker 1: United ship. I talked to him about the team and
Speaker 1: the universal dislike non Manu fans have for Menu fans.
Speaker 1: Then after a while they opened up more about their experiences.
Speaker 1: They had, they said, seen their bodies, and they couldn't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about what happened if they had for them,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to know how when or if the
Speaker 1: dead people's family would ever find out.
Speaker 4: The family waits for that person to come out to
Speaker 4: hear that they made it, because if not, who's going
Speaker 4: to let you know? There's no signal and nobody's going
Speaker 4: to grab the body, and you're not going to carry
Speaker 4: them out. The person stays there and eventually years and
Speaker 4: years go by and the family won't know where they
Speaker 4: are or how they died. Those are the sort of
Speaker 4: things that one doesn't expect to see, and it makes
Speaker 4: you just want to hurry past. Not that you wouldn't
Speaker 4: want to get the documentation from the body and deliver
Speaker 4: it and tell them how this person had passed away,
Speaker 4: But how dare you just go grabbing a dead body?
Speaker 1: Nethuinan elections were held on the twenty eighth of July
Speaker 1: this year. Venezuelan pressions have a six year term and
Speaker 1: the incumbent, the Colasma Duro, has been in office since
Speaker 1: twenty thirty. I let the Venezuelan people and that introduce
Speaker 1: themselves and explain the result of the election. Now there's
Speaker 1: a bit of background noise here, but that's because we're
Speaker 1: walking on the trails and it's hard to avoid.
Speaker 2: I am coming from Venezuela, migrating through the jungle for
Speaker 2: a better future for me and my children. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you it's hard, but it's not impossible. No, that was
Speaker 2: electoral fraud. And I tell you what, one day, you
Speaker 2: just have to leave.
Speaker 1: Maduro was opposed by A Juardo Gonzalez, an opposite candidate
Speaker 1: who represented a wide coalition in creating groups on the
Speaker 1: left and right. While Maduro might have support among Western
Speaker 1: socialists and even communists, the actual Venezuelan Communist Parties youth
Speaker 1: organization formed part of the Popular Democratic Front that opposed him.
Speaker 1: Despite Paul Watchers tallying a massive victory for the opposition,
Speaker 1: Moduro controls the National Lecture Council and proclaimed himself the victor.
Speaker 1: People protested, and Maduro responded with bullets. Gonzales fled to
Speaker 1: the Dutch and then the Spanish embassy, and later claimed
Speaker 1: asylum in Spain, where his family lived. But for regular
Speaker 1: working class Venezuelan's there's no option to hop on a
Speaker 1: flight to safety. Instead, they have to be in the
Speaker 1: long walk north, as many Venezuelans in respect you told me.
Speaker 1: In addition to the electoral fraud, Venezuela is undergoing an
Speaker 1: economic collapse, at least in the Chavis. He said, most
Speaker 1: people could eat. When I lived in La Pastora, I
Speaker 1: was able to access medical care from Cuban doctors. Now
Speaker 1: they say things have become a Survivaldo.
Speaker 5: So you're Venezuela. When Venezuela, well, I would say that Venezuela,
Speaker 5: you know, yeah, you can live but not on a
Speaker 5: minimum wage.
Speaker 3: I would say that, for example, working independently in an
Speaker 3: independent business, maybe you can live good. But working and
Speaker 3: surviving for a minimum wage now, the truth is that
Speaker 3: it doesn't work, and that's serious. Things are still bad
Speaker 3: with the new elections and the new government. Everything is ugly.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The streets of Caracas are full of protests. Every day.
Speaker 3: People went out to protest. Sometimes they shoot people. The
Speaker 3: government mistreats people. But if you can live with it,
Speaker 3: and you can live with it it's ugly. Well, that
Speaker 3: is why we left there for a better future, and
Speaker 3: we will keep moving onward onward.
Speaker 1: This group were young men traveling in advance with their families,
Speaker 1: hoping to earn some money, save it up, and send
Speaker 1: it home. They knew what they were getting into when
Speaker 1: they got to the USA, that migrants were often underpaid
Speaker 1: and might struggle to make ends meet, but they still
Speaker 1: thought it was better than staying home and watching your
Speaker 1: children's future disappear.
Speaker 4: If you don't have papers, you don't have a work permit,
Speaker 4: you have to work for it. They want to pay you,
Speaker 4: not for what you demand or anything.
Speaker 1: I met lots of Venezuela families with children who had
Speaker 1: different illnesses or disabilities, things they couldn't obtain or afford
Speaker 1: treatment for in Venezuela. They were traveling to the US
Speaker 1: in the hopes of a better future for their kids,
Speaker 1: or any future at all. I met young men who
Speaker 1: left their children behind but carried the children of strangers,
Speaker 1: even those with whom they didn't share a language. Christian,
Speaker 1: who he heard from earlier, showed me how he'd carried
Speaker 1: someone else's child on his shoulders until he fell and
Speaker 1: hurt his knee.
Speaker 6: We all help.
Speaker 3: I put little children up here on my shoulders to
Speaker 3: carry them, but it isn't easy.
Speaker 1: In the jungle, they'd formed chains using their arms to
Speaker 1: cross rivers and carried little children on those who couldn't swim.
Speaker 1: In Barji Guito, I saw a group of men from
Speaker 1: Angola receiving hugs from Venezuela and women they'd helped in
Speaker 1: the jungle. Without the help of the Angolans, they said
Speaker 1: their children wouldn't have made it. One slip or a
Speaker 1: loss of grip, they told me, would be fatal, and
Speaker 1: the remains of those who had done just that served
Speaker 1: as a grisly reminder. Later, little boys, maybe eight or
Speaker 1: ten years old gleefully recounted seeing a dead body on
Speaker 1: which the head had quote exploded while their parents winked
Speaker 1: in recollection. I wanted to understand a bit more of
Speaker 1: what they were fleeing. That made it worth going through
Speaker 1: all this.
Speaker 5: Venezuela.
Speaker 7: Well, I left Venezuela because I worked in fishing. But
Speaker 7: right now in Venezuela, despite the fact that it is
Speaker 7: a country rich and oil, there's not enough gasoline for
Speaker 7: the fishermen to go fishing. And since I did not
Speaker 7: have the ability to even buy basic things such as food,
Speaker 7: the situation was, well, it was a little complicated. I
Speaker 7: had to immigrate. I had nothing else to do. They
Speaker 7: didn't rob me, well, they were going to rob me
Speaker 7: because I didn't have anything to steal. We passed by
Speaker 7: and the group that was behind us got robbed. They
Speaker 7: raped women in that group.
Speaker 1: Almost every Venezuelan micro and I speG to share a
Speaker 1: similar story. One said he didn't stare security cameras, but
Speaker 1: nobody could afford them now, as it had to choose
Speaker 1: between rent and groceries or medical procedures that they needed
Speaker 1: but couldn't afford. Overwhelmingly they said the same thing. No aifuturo,
Speaker 1: there's no future. One group said to me that they
Speaker 1: couldn't wait for their country to become like Cuba, as
Speaker 1: decades of embargos took their toll on the population. But
Speaker 1: others reminded me in them that least of Cubans seem
Speaker 1: to have doctors. Venezuela has an eighty percent poverty right now,
Speaker 1: and though it sits on one of the largest oil
Speaker 1: reserves of any country on Earth, it's been plagued by
Speaker 1: planting oil prices in the years of hyperinflation, which got
Speaker 1: so bad at one point the shots stopped putting price
Speaker 1: tags on things and relied on staff to give up
Speaker 1: to the minute prices. Today, alongside a regime that lacks legitimacy,
Speaker 1: a state that readily uses horrific violence against its people,
Speaker 1: an election that was essentially ignored, Venezuelan's must also deal
Speaker 1: with shortages of basic goods, poverty, and malnutrition. Unlike Cubans
Speaker 1: who have a relatively good polittal lobby in the USA,
Speaker 1: Venezuelan's coming to the USA do not benefit from special laws.
Speaker 1: Cubans under the Cuban Adjustment Act have a part of
Speaker 1: the citizenship and permanence once they set foot on US soil.
Speaker 1: Venezuelans do not. They're covered by something called a temporary
Speaker 1: protected status, but this does not afford them much in
Speaker 1: the way of stability, protection, or a secure future. His
Speaker 1: Ereka Pinhidro of Alotolado and Incredible organization does valuable work
Speaker 1: with migrant legal aid advocacy and humanitarian relief, explaining just
Speaker 1: how temporary a TPS is.
Speaker 6: So temporary protected status is it's basically a form of
Speaker 6: protecting individuals who are already in the United States when
Speaker 6: their countries have experienced a natural disaster, if they are
Speaker 6: in war, there's some kind of situation going on that
Speaker 6: makes it difficult for them to return, and so temporary
Speaker 6: protected status was first created in nineteen ninety and the
Speaker 6: first individuals who receive the status were from El Salvador,
Speaker 6: and since then, I think there's been a few dozen
Speaker 6: countries that have been designated. But basically the way it
Speaker 6: works is they designate a country and so if you
Speaker 6: were in the United States before that designation date, you
Speaker 6: can apply for temporary protected status within a designated time
Speaker 6: period and you get a work permit. It's valid for six,
Speaker 6: twelve or eighteen months and then two months before it expires,
Speaker 6: the Secretary of the Department of holand Security has to
Speaker 6: say whether or not they're going to reauthorize GPS. So
Speaker 6: there's like eight hundred and sixty thousand people in the
Speaker 6: US who have temporary protected status and it's not a
Speaker 6: path to citizenship. So basically people are just in limbo
Speaker 6: sometimes for decades, you know, they just have to reapply
Speaker 6: for this permit every eighteen months. So I have quite
Speaker 6: a few salvador and friends who've been in the United
Speaker 6: States since the nineties. They have kids, some of them
Speaker 6: current kids, or a US citizen, and they can't become
Speaker 6: permanent residents or have a path the citizenship unless they
Speaker 6: leave the country and either come back with another type
Speaker 6: of parole or you know, apply through a consulate, which
Speaker 6: many of them are just not willing to take that risk.
Speaker 1: Well, makes things even more complicated for the Venezuelans is
Speaker 1: that many of them are traveling without document. It costs
Speaker 1: three hundred bucks to get a passport, they told me,
Speaker 1: and the weight's considerable. This makes their journeys even harder
Speaker 1: as every country the enter has to approve them to
Speaker 1: without a passport. Getting a visa, they said would be
Speaker 1: nearly impossible, and just trying that result in the government
Speaker 1: coming after them. Such things, they said, are reserved for
Speaker 1: the wealthier citizens, people like Gonzales, who's asylum claim and
Speaker 1: stays at the Dutch and Spanish embassies, and his right
Speaker 1: to join his family in exile are all luxuries that
Speaker 1: most of his country people can't expect. Instead, most Venezuelans
Speaker 1: must ride buses through Columbia, then walk north through the jungle,
Speaker 1: then ride buses stir away on trains, or walk again
Speaker 1: all the way to the border. They all lamented the
Speaker 1: Dadian crossing and so they wouldn't advise it without other options.
Speaker 1: They all made it anyway, community.
Speaker 4: See, because because unfortunately we don't have much in our country.
Speaker 4: You don't have another option. When you're dying of hunger
Speaker 4: and you don't have a future, you can't even study.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's worth it.
Speaker 1: The economic situation is dire in Venezuela. Many families can't
Speaker 1: make end me, their currency is almost worth us, and
Speaker 1: the majority government seems to have successfully installed itself for
Speaker 1: the foreseeable future. This will mean a continuation of embargos
Speaker 1: and sanctions, which will harm the people more than the regime. Sadly, though,
Speaker 1: economic hardships is not a criteria which won't be grounded
Speaker 1: asylum in the usah Erica.
Speaker 6: Again, so severe economic deprivation can be persecution if it's
Speaker 6: linked to one of the other protege grounds, so race, religion, nationality,
Speaker 6: political opinion, or membership, but in a particular social group. So
Speaker 6: for example, if someone participated in anti Maduro political activity
Speaker 6: and then we're blocked from getting a job or just
Speaker 6: denied economic opportunities to the point where they're starving, the
Speaker 6: economic deprivation could count as persecution, but it's a very
Speaker 6: difficult case to make in the United States. In Mexico,
Speaker 6: you can get protection based on generalized conditions in your country,
Speaker 6: and so you know, Venezuelans betweeing economic collapse or even
Speaker 6: Central Americans fleeing extreme violence have a much easier time
Speaker 6: dating protection in Mexico than they would in the United
Speaker 6: States because of that kind of extra category of protection
Speaker 6: in Mexico. The issue with Mexico is just the very
Speaker 6: limited capacity of this islum system overall, and the very
Speaker 6: dangerous conditions in which people are forced to wait while
Speaker 6: their cases are judicated.
Speaker 1: Going forward from the Dadian, they'll face an enormously difficult journey.
Speaker 1: The US does have a program for Cubans, Venezuelan and
Speaker 1: Haitians and Nicaraguans, then in theory allows them to apply,
Speaker 1: be pre approved and fly straight to the USA, but
Speaker 1: it's so delayed and it's just not an option for
Speaker 1: people who barely have enough money for food, let learn
Speaker 1: a plane ticket there.
Speaker 6: This HMV program is for Cumanations, nick Garaguans, Venezuelans who
Speaker 6: have not crossed into Panama or Mexico in the past
Speaker 6: few years. You do not qualify who've done that or
Speaker 6: have not been inter died at sea. If they're Haitian
Speaker 6: or Cuban, you have to have a sponsor in the
Speaker 6: United States who have some kind of legal status. You
Speaker 6: have to be able to pay for the flight, you
Speaker 6: have to have a passport, and you have to be
Speaker 6: able to wait forever long it takes for your application
Speaker 6: to be approved. And the Department of Homeland Security just
Speaker 6: announced that they are not renewing parole for people who
Speaker 6: are already in the United States. So people from those
Speaker 6: four countries who were in the US head up to
Speaker 6: two years of humanitarian parole, which is not being renewed,
Speaker 6: so they either would need to apply for something else
Speaker 6: or go back to their country, or just I guess,
Speaker 6: stay in the it stints undocumented until their codavy.
Speaker 1: I heard the same story hundreds of times that week,
Speaker 1: sometimes off mike and sometimes on mike, sometimes holding my
Speaker 1: voice recorder and notebook, sometimes just sitting on the ground
Speaker 1: or walking on the trail or enjoying a bottle of
Speaker 1: cold water in Bahjigito. Crippling poverty and bad governance in
Speaker 1: their country made it difficult to see a future there.
Speaker 1: They wanted better for their children, so they bought them
Speaker 1: across the mountains and risked their lives in the jungle
Speaker 1: to give them a chance. And I prepared a lot
Speaker 1: for this trip, and I tried to search for everything
Speaker 1: I my experience on the internet. But one thing I
Speaker 1: really didn't expect to learn in the jungle is just
Speaker 1: how much it's possible for parents to love their kids.
Speaker 1: I watched exhausted mothers hoist their babies onto their shoulders
Speaker 1: to keep walking, and somehow come up with a story
Speaker 1: that made the whole thing an adventure, not a tragedy.
Speaker 1: Then did the same thing again the next day, without
Speaker 1: sleeping or eating. I watch fathers carefully lay out their
Speaker 1: sleeping map so that children could rest where they tried
Speaker 1: to do the same on the dirt or hardwood floors
Speaker 1: every day as their savings grew low and they out
Speaker 1: looked more bleak, I watched parents try to smile for
Speaker 1: their kids. The sacrifices I saw them make, starving for
Speaker 1: days to give their kids something to eat, or spending
Speaker 1: their last remaining dollar on clean clothes for their kids
Speaker 1: while they walked barefoot and couldn't afford shoes really brought
Speaker 1: home for me the desire these families had for a
Speaker 1: better future and the sacrifices they were willing to make
Speaker 1: for one Another. Week later, it's still hard for me
Speaker 1: to accept that I'm home safely and they're still in
Speaker 1: as much danger, if not more.
Speaker 8: Our walk lasted five days. Thank god I was always
Speaker 8: strong enough and able to get back up when I fell,
Speaker 8: because if I fell and my children had to see
Speaker 8: me fall and not get up, imagine how bad that
Speaker 8: would be. My children want more in the future, but
Speaker 8: they despaired in the jungle. They said, tell me, Mommy,
Speaker 8: when are we going to get there? Mommy? What could
Speaker 8: I say to them? My dear, we have to have
Speaker 8: patience because we have to make the crossing. We have
Speaker 8: to move forward. If not, we can't get out of here.
Speaker 1: Even among such difficult times, the Venezuelans always greeted me
Speaker 1: with a laugh and a smile, especially after a few
Speaker 1: days of running into each other. When I use venezuhealen
Speaker 1: slang or my accents slowly reverted to the Spanish, and I
Speaker 1: learned in Karrakas only two decades ago, they'd laugh at me,
Speaker 1: as they noted at that time Karrakas had attracted plenty
Speaker 1: of migrants, to recern, some of them, like me, didn't stay,
Speaker 1: but we came. We wanted to see a revolution in
Speaker 1: the flesh, and they welcomed us. For a while in Caracas,
Speaker 1: I lived in a social center in La Pastora. I
Speaker 1: didn't pay rent, but there was a small, empty room
Speaker 1: and no one seemed to mind. Every day I talked
Speaker 1: to strangers, big friends, and try and learn something new.
Speaker 1: The situation there was an ideal. For one thing, we
Speaker 1: didn't really have showers, and also I got robbed at gunpoint.
Speaker 1: So for most of my time in the country, I
Speaker 1: stayed with the Chilean family i'd met. They welcomed me
Speaker 1: a more or left total stranger into their homes and lives.
Speaker 1: In the evenings, we spent hours talking and they'd tell
Speaker 1: me stories about how they'd suffered under Pinochet, the hopes
Speaker 1: they'd had for their country, and how they'd had to
Speaker 1: flee to Caracas like tens of thousands of their fellow Chileans.
Speaker 1: They introduced me to Victor Harr and Jody Pan. I
Speaker 1: introduced them to chumber Wamba, and we shared an affection
Speaker 1: for George Orwell. The song you heard after the adverts
Speaker 1: was not in fact chamber Wamba, but Chilean left his
Speaker 1: folk musician in Victor Haa. He's playing Eldrecho de vi
Speaker 1: videnpaz the right to live in Peace in English, and
Speaker 1: it's one of his most famous songs. It confronts the
Speaker 1: US War in Vietnam. After how I was tortured and
Speaker 1: murdered by the Pinochet regime, it became an anthem of
Speaker 1: protest in the country. Haah and his friend Pabu and
Speaker 1: the Ruda were both symbols of the cultural power of
Speaker 1: the Chilean people and the brutality of the Pinochet regime
Speaker 1: who broke the hands He used to play his guitar
Speaker 1: before they killed him. Harah and the Rudah both moved
Speaker 1: in the same revolutionary artistic circles as my Chilean host
Speaker 1: in Venezuela. At night, they tell me stories about the
Speaker 1: time they spent together. We'd have to speak loudly as
Speaker 1: a man who had adopted me as a sort of
Speaker 1: surrogate grandson of permanent hearing damage from the torture he'd
Speaker 1: endured under the same regime. Luckily, he'd been able to
Speaker 1: flee with his wife to Venezuela, where they were welcomed.
Speaker 1: They never returned to Chile and happily lived out the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives listening to their Victor Haarra records
Speaker 1: in Caracas and living the ideals that had seen them persecuted.
Speaker 1: Their kindness to me, a nineteen year old stranger with
Speaker 1: terrible Spanish and nowhere to sleep at night, reflected the
Speaker 1: kindness they'd received, and I've tried to reflect it in
Speaker 1: turn ever since. Oh no, oh, I never once heard
Speaker 1: any children crying and last blankets or bar chiquito, well,
Speaker 1: not until the deportations took their parents away on my
Speaker 1: last day there. Most of the time, the kids entertained
Speaker 1: themselves one day in Last Blancas, where migrants can wait
Speaker 1: and spend weeks or months they don't have the funds
Speaker 1: to move forward with their journey. I left my picture
Speaker 1: while she made a call and bumped into some little
Speaker 1: children playing a game where they throw water bottle caps
Speaker 1: into half a breeze block from various distances, each of
Speaker 1: them counting how many they could land. I sat down
Speaker 1: next to them, put my recorder on the ground and
Speaker 1: asked nicely if I could join them like a tiny
Speaker 1: pit boss. One of the kids bought me a pile
Speaker 1: of bottle tops, and I chatted with them as we
Speaker 1: threw a bottle cap to the broken piece of concrete.
Speaker 1: What was it like in America?
Speaker 2: They asked.
Speaker 1: They's had a lot of questions about Africa, having probably
Speaker 1: met African kids in the casita just across the way.
Speaker 1: Do they have big buildings in Africa? Does it rain there?
Speaker 1: How long does it take to get there in a bus?
Speaker 1: Then they tested by venezuela and legitimacy by drawing me
Speaker 1: in a ripper in my notebook, and I asked him
Speaker 1: if I knew what it was, what I passed a test?
Speaker 1: They asked me how to say some things in English,
Speaker 1: and they showed me the toys they bought with them,
Speaker 1: which were very few. One of them had a small
Speaker 1: plastic cow of which he was very proud one. After
Speaker 1: a while, they asked what I was doing, and I
Speaker 1: showed them how I record interviews, at which point they
Speaker 1: began recording themselves in each other, wildly stabbing at the
Speaker 1: buttons on my recorder, which I will admit scared the
Speaker 1: crap out of me, but I didn't have the heart
Speaker 1: to take it off them. They stroked the fluffy wim
Speaker 1: protector I use on my microphone. It told me it
Speaker 1: was like a tiny teddy bear. Eventually I was able
Speaker 1: to trade my recorder for several small wooden animals that
Speaker 1: brought with me as gifts, which seemed to be a deal.
Speaker 1: The left all of us feelings that we come out ahead.
Speaker 1: They seemed n't bothered by the suffering around them. But
Speaker 1: Las Blancas is no place for children. They should be
Speaker 1: in school, learning the English phrases they kept repeating to
Speaker 1: me every time I saw them. But for a chance
Speaker 1: to use their English, they first had to endure month
Speaker 1: more danger and deprivation. I guess Son. Some slightly hold
Speaker 1: A children made the journey alone or almost alone. They
Speaker 1: were accompanied by a spaniel called Channel. I saw a
Speaker 1: future while as people are carried with them through the
Speaker 1: day and gap. But to my analysis, is the first
Speaker 1: spaniel that has made the treacherous Crossingezuela.
Speaker 9: Luela.
Speaker 1: Like everyone else, they had terrible memories from the jung.
Speaker 10: The truth is you have to fight a lot to
Speaker 10: be able to get out of there, because not everyone
Speaker 10: gets out of that jungle, and it's even more difficult
Speaker 10: with small children. There are times when one goes without
Speaker 10: food and it's very stressful because all around us all
Speaker 10: we saw was the jungle, and we never saw the
Speaker 10: way out. But it is complicated. The truth is that
Speaker 10: it is very hard the jungle. Well, I would really
Speaker 10: recommend that people never go there. All our feet are hurting,
Speaker 10: we can't walk properly. Our whole body is hurt. We
Speaker 10: went days without eating.
Speaker 1: They were traveling. They said to join their parents, and
Speaker 1: because in Venezuela they told me they were always hungry.
Speaker 1: They saw people sleeping on the streets and worried that
Speaker 1: would be their only option. One day they didn't leave.
Speaker 10: I want to see mom. I haven't seen her in
Speaker 10: three years, and I want to have my American dream too.
Speaker 11: I want to see my dad, my aunt and my uncle.
Speaker 11: I haven't seen them for three years either.
Speaker 1: Despite the hard yet they didn't blame their parents for leaving.
Speaker 11: We know that we made it because of them. They're
Speaker 11: the ones who sent us money for the things we need.
Speaker 11: We were able to get a few things, not everything
Speaker 11: we needed, but it's all thanks to them.
Speaker 1: The end of their interview, as I always do, I
Speaker 1: asked them if there's anything else that they wanted to share.
Speaker 7: I don't know. For our parents, we love them a
Speaker 7: lot and hope we can see them soon.
Speaker 1: Like many of the Venezuelan's I spoke to, their American
Speaker 1: dreams were pretty modest for most of them, though they'll
Speaker 1: be unachievable in the current immigration system. They'll end up
Speaker 1: stuck in Mexico, in Mexico City perhaps for further south,
Speaker 1: but in Tijuana or Juaro's waiting across the border of
Speaker 1: They're lucky, but if they cried across between ports of entry,
Speaker 1: we'll get caught traveling without red string. In Mexico, they
Speaker 1: were being deported or relocated back to southern Mexico, Hesatica
Speaker 1: explaining that process.
Speaker 6: The Mexican National Guard has been detaining people who are
Speaker 6: trying to cross the US medical border, and they had
Speaker 6: been sending them south to Mexico City and Chiapas to Tapachula.
Speaker 6: Now there's been this huge effort to stop people from waiting,
Speaker 6: not only at the US Mexico border, but even in
Speaker 6: Mexco City. So we're seeing Mexican Immigration and National Guard
Speaker 6: doing sweeps of migrant camps, of apartment buildings, doesn't matter
Speaker 6: if the person has a CVP one appointment. Sometimes they'll
Speaker 6: just send them souths to either Chiapa's an increasing lead
Speaker 6: to Basco. So Vie at Mossa, which is where people
Speaker 6: are arriving in Tabasco, has one shelter and I think
Speaker 6: the capacity is around two hundred and fifty three hundred people,
Speaker 6: and earlier this year they were sending twenty thousand migrants
Speaker 6: a month there and then they posted the military ships
Speaker 6: so that people can't leave, and it's very dangerous there.
Speaker 6: It's a drug tracking area, so it's you know, not
Speaker 6: only are people sleeping in the streets, but they're sleeping
Speaker 6: on the streets of some of the most dangerous cities
Speaker 6: and massacre win very few services there to help them
Speaker 6: even get their next meal.
Speaker 1: This, of course, didn't happen without the inmfluence of the
Speaker 1: United States. In many ways, Joe Biden has done exactly
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump promised to do. Not only has he
Speaker 1: built more wall, he's also forced Mexico to pay for
Speaker 1: a significant amount of the US's immigration enforcement. But when
Speaker 1: people are sent back to the south of Mexico, they'll
Speaker 1: just make their way north again, only this time with
Speaker 1: fewer resources and even greater risk. They're all proud of
Speaker 1: where they're from. About half the groups I saw had
Speaker 1: Venezuela flags and the cats or backpacks, but they're also
Speaker 1: very aware of the betrayal they get as Venezuelan's in
Speaker 1: the US media, and many of them made the very
Speaker 1: valid point if American is afraid of Venezuela gangs, they
Speaker 1: ought to consider how much more afraid people are in
Speaker 1: a country where they actually exist.
Speaker 12: Yahvencelanma parazon is and female.
Speaker 7: I'm thirteen. Please don't believe that because one person from
Speaker 7: Venezuela does crime, that all Venezuelans do crime.
Speaker 1: But at least they get it betrayed in the US media.
Speaker 1: Many African migrants don't even get that. Of course, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they don't know about the USA his powers
Speaker 1: in her anglophant Cameronian group again talking about their impressions
Speaker 1: of America where they'd like to live when they arrive here.
Speaker 9: You know, America is a very beautiful country, and America
Speaker 9: has human rights, take care about the citizens. In fact,
Speaker 9: they care about humanity. See, I don't want to have
Speaker 9: a friend that I'm gonna stay with for the meantime.
Speaker 1: Then it gets that's great. Yeah, that helps a lot.
Speaker 1: Do you know which city your friend lives in?
Speaker 9: She's in Maryland, Maryland? Okay, yeah, So if I'm asks,
Speaker 9: if you don't mind me asking, of course, what do Americans?
Speaker 9: How do they treat or how do they say immigrants?
Speaker 1: Oh, my friend, it's changing a lot. African migrants in
Speaker 1: particular will struggle with a lack of resources. The absence
Speaker 1: of solidarity structures an obvious anti blackness along the journey.
Speaker 1: Along with this, people they meet along the way simply
Speaker 1: lack context of their journeys and why they're leaving what
Speaker 1: they're fleeing. Language barriers may exclude many of them from
Speaker 1: using CBP one which is only offered English, Spanish and
Speaker 1: Haitian Creole. Less than fifteen percent of asylum cases are
Speaker 1: conducted in English, but the app ignores huge swass of
Speaker 1: the world outside the Western Hemisphere. And by Jiquito, I
Speaker 1: used French to speak to minor student's speak English and
Speaker 1: began to notice the complete absence of signage. And I
Speaker 1: think other than Spanish and sometimes English and Creole, this
Speaker 1: is likely an issue throughout their long journeys. Here's one
Speaker 1: migrant from Angola, and I should probably know at this
Speaker 1: point that Angolan people tend to speak Portuguese, that's a
Speaker 1: national language. But French, with the language I shared with
Speaker 1: some of them, as I don't speak Portuguese, pretty complete.
Speaker 13: It was too much, very complicated. Like me, I did
Speaker 13: a week in Brazil, at Brazil and for par Peru
Speaker 13: to nicol Klee. Then here I did. We did four days,
Speaker 13: four days walking. There are many mountains, many risks, there
Speaker 13: are many animals along the route. You have to follow
Speaker 13: the path for four days and there's no food. But
Speaker 13: we are glad to arrive today. This is the first group.
Speaker 13: There's the second, third, fourth, fifth group. They're still on
Speaker 13: the road. I'm very proud of the fact that we
Speaker 13: made it despite the suffering. But God was with us.
Speaker 13: That is what is important.
Speaker 1: There are numerous instances of French speaking migrants trying to
Speaker 1: approach the border near me in scis Cedra and being
Speaker 1: turned away for not having an appointment on that that's
Speaker 1: not available in a language they can understand. These language
Speaker 1: barriers might stop the migrants getting information, but they don't
Speaker 1: stop them helping one another. His powers group describing the
Speaker 1: isolation they felt, but also the kindness they experienced. Do
Speaker 1: you think people on the trip treat African people differently?
Speaker 9: Yes, they're not living communicated. They are just by themselves.
Speaker 9: They don't associate. They look at all differently. Yeah, client
Speaker 9: personally art I had some more support.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I saw.
Speaker 4: I saw how kind the person was.
Speaker 1: Because of their obvious foreignness and perceived an ability to communicate.
Speaker 1: African migrants are often targeted for crime in Mexico. Since
Speaker 1: leaving Panama, I've heard from migrants who are raped, kidnapped, ransomed,
Speaker 1: and I even heard about one who was killed Because
Speaker 1: of their difficulties accessing this CVP one app Many face
Speaker 1: longer weights in Mexico, which may in turn leave them
Speaker 1: open to extortion or see them decide to cross the
Speaker 1: border between ports of entry. I've met hundreds of migrants,
Speaker 1: mainly Mauritanians and Geneians, who have made this difficult choice.
Speaker 1: Since Biden's Asylent Bank came into force. Due to the distance,
Speaker 1: African migrants also face a longer, more expensive, and more
Speaker 1: dangerous journey. His premier from Zimbabwe, describing her journey, has
Speaker 1: to get about the situation.
Speaker 12: For me, it was tough. I just ran away to
Speaker 12: South Africa and South Africa was not safe. Solophobia and
Speaker 12: they almost kill me and my boyfriend and even my
Speaker 12: my big father was abusive, too much agressive because of
Speaker 12: the politics. I'm opposition party, so it was now even
Speaker 12: in South Africa, I was not safe at all. It
Speaker 12: was those people, they were like following me and my daughter.
Speaker 12: So I spent three months on the road coming here.
Speaker 12: I leave South Africa, I think fourth of July till
Speaker 12: now I'm in Panama. I'm still working using basses.
Speaker 1: Jesus, how did you get away from Africa to America?
Speaker 1: Did you fly or take a boat?
Speaker 12: The thing is I f from Juannspek to Brazil. Then
Speaker 12: I seek asylum in Brazil. Then I wanted to stay
Speaker 12: in Brazil, so people said no, ye in Brazil, you
Speaker 12: can't because of language. Yeah, yeah, Portuguese. So I start
Speaker 12: also using depots root like you list take this pass
Speaker 12: from point A to point BA. So we take a
Speaker 12: bus from Brazil to Bolivia, then from Bolivia to Peru,
Speaker 12: Peru to Equad to Colombia. Then you start working with
Speaker 12: using Darren Cape too. I'm here in Panama.
Speaker 1: African migrants will end up in different shelters, a little
Speaker 1: more remote, will have less connectivity, again, making their asylum
Speaker 1: process harder. Unlike migrants from the Western Hemisphere, they might
Speaker 1: struggle to find solidarity networks even inside the USA without
Speaker 1: a significant diaspora. Many of the migrants I met the
Speaker 1: jungle have struggled to find sponsors. That's the people I
Speaker 1: spoke to here, including Primerose and her daughter, still looking
Speaker 1: for someone to give them a helping hand as they
Speaker 1: start their new life. We spoke a lot over the
Speaker 1: WEEKO is there, and we've spoken most days since. It's
Speaker 1: heartbreaking for me to see her daughter going for months
Speaker 1: with our education or even a safe place to sleep.
Speaker 1: I've seen photos of them sleeping on the street They've
Speaker 1: ridden crowded busses north, and I've heard their frustrated attempts
Speaker 1: to comply with the arcane and complicated restrictions on their
Speaker 1: right to come here and ask for help. And it's
Speaker 1: been really hard since I got home to reconcile this
Speaker 1: with a national discussion that seems to see migration as
Speaker 1: a number that we have to decrease a migrants to
Speaker 1: something other than people who want to come here for
Speaker 1: all the same reasons. I live happily and peaceably as
Speaker 1: our neighbors. Now that they've come this far, maggants from
Speaker 1: outside the Western Hemisphere have to keep going. They can't
Speaker 1: even file their claims on CBP one until they make
Speaker 1: it to Tapatula, which is hundreds of dollars and thousands
Speaker 1: of kilometers from Panama. They likely don't have the funds
Speaker 1: to go back home even if they want to, and
Speaker 1: they are far more likely to be robbed or kidnapped
Speaker 1: along the way. However, their story is often aren't told.
Speaker 1: Reporting on the board is still largely focused on Spanish
Speaker 1: speaking migrants, with some space for Chinese or Haitians. The
Speaker 1: migrants from Africa rarely get much care or attention in
Speaker 1: the media. In part this has helped them before the
Speaker 1: demonization the Venezuelan migrants are all too aware of, but
Speaker 1: in part it also leads to a lack of concern
Speaker 1: for their needs. I went to end today was Gabriel
Speaker 1: from Equatorial Guinea sharing his message for Americans.
Speaker 14: Ah Aca know as Yeah, A lot of people get
Speaker 14: this confused. Africa is not a country. A lot of
Speaker 14: them think when they see you and you're black person,
Speaker 14: they say, are you African? And it's like, there are
Speaker 14: lots of countries in Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, you got, Guinea,
Speaker 14: you got the more Atanian people. There are loads of countries.
Speaker 14: I wish people would know.
Speaker 2: How do I say this?
Speaker 14: I wish they'd take us into a count because really
Speaker 14: they don't consider us when they say Africa is a country.
Speaker 14: They don't care about us the way we care about them.
Speaker 14: And this is the way of seeing things which doesn't
Speaker 14: consider us as human, not the same as them. You understand,
Speaker 14: they see us as Africans or animals, something like that.
Speaker 10: It could happen.
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